The writing continues. We were filming ourselves again in the rehearsal space. Dave brought a new song to the mix the other day wich was awesome. It’s been stuck in my head all week… so I guess that’s a good sign. The best part about writing new music is just giving yourself the freedom to make something out of nothing. Now, obviously that doesn’t really happen too much here on earth. Everything has been inspired by something/someone else to some degree, but when you take all the elements and all the influences of your life and turn it into something new, that’s special, that’s innovation. Coming up with these new tunes has been a great experience so far and I’m looking forward to making more!

On Saturday Dave and I, and our good friend TJ went to our new rehearsal space down here in Toronto to tack some drums for our demos. Oh yeah, we’re writing new songs at the moment for a new album and stuff. Dave decided to put the video to some Deadmau5… you know, because I’m SO intense

Well, no roofs were harmed on the account of our last show at the Legendary Horseshoe Tavern, last Wednesday, August 24th, 2011, but there were significant tornado warnings that night. After exclaiming, “Hey guys, we’re playing the Horseshoe!” to the crowd, Dave later claimed that “if the tornado didn’t tear the roof off this club, than the band would”. In the end we decided it would be best to leave the roof where it was and leave the roof tearing to metaphor. It was an awesome show none the less.

Despite the weather The Breaking Lakes decidedly rocked on. If you don’t know of the Horseshoe Tavern, you’re probably not from Toronto… and even then, it’s as much a part of Toronto as CBGB was to New York… only, the Horseshoe is still around. This was the first time we’ve ever played at the Horseshoe Tavern, although I have been to plenty of concerts there. For me it was the first time I’ve ever got on a stage and actually got some goose bumps. It was certainly a memorable experience. The band was tight and the fans who showed were only of the hardest core, having braved rain and wind to come to the show. The club was hopping and the atmosphere alive last Wednesday. We’re certainly looking forward to playing there again soon!

Other notables from that night. She Roars, a band from Fredericton New Brunswick, was in town. They played before us that night. They were a group of four really cool guys, and an awesome band to boot. Check ‘em out.

The Breaking Lakes are taking part in North by North East 2011. We are really excited about this. It’s going to be a blast! We’re on at 11pm at Mitzi’s Sister down on Queen St. West, Toronto. All the details are in the HERE and HERE and… umm… HERE!

We are looking forward to being a part of this epic festival of indie music and film. See you there if you dare!

Notes:NXNE 2011 – We’re honored and psyched to have been selected to be a part of this year’s NXNE 2011! TBL will be on the stage of Mitzie’s Sister at 11pm on the night of Thursday, May 16. It’s going to be an awesome night filled with awesome bands.

We had a great time playing in Toronto again. Last Thursday we had a amazing opportunity to play at the Mod Club in Toronto’s Little Italy with a band who are quickly becoming our friends, Avery Island. It was cool playing with Avery Island the other day because last summer we played with them twice at a couple music festivals, each yielding empty rooms for both bands (lame). This time a playing to a full venue like the Mod Club seemed much more appropriate. Check ‘em out. I think we’ll hook up with them again soon.

I made this poster for the upcoming show at the The Mod Club. We were channeling our inner beatnik for this poster as we felt we should look all “mod” for our gig at the The Mod Club. I guess it’s actually just a cool club and it isn’t at all stuck in the 1950′s… even though that would be cool too. Oh well you live and you learn

The Breaking Lakes will be playing at the Mod Club on Thursday, April 21, 2011 and it’s going to be amazing!!! However what else would you expect to read off a blog written by one of the guys in the band to whom this site is dedicated to? I know I would not have expected much less… did you notice the use of three sequential exclamation marks? Yeah, we mean business. As a rule, our band only whips those out when we really mean what we’re saying to the extreme, or if Jay is posting something on twitter. Twitter seems to have a gorilla style grammar system going on, where as this is a blog. This isn’t Nam, there are rules, and when you see three exclamation marks in a row you know it’s going to be epic!!!

In January The Breaking Lakes were asked to be a wedding band for myself and Dave’s sister’s wedding reception. It was an awesome time, however, having never been asked to do this before we quickly realized that we didn’t know enough good dance songs to fill up the time. So for the next few weeks we went to work at putting a set together. It was a blast and needless to say, I hope you all like Twist and Shout because I’m pretty sure it’s making its way into the TBL rotation.

Due to our extreme focus and pursuit of excellence in trying to pretend to be a wedding band, The Breaking Lakes might have seemed to be a bit on the down-low. Well never fear! We’ve got a bunch of stuff planned for these next few months and we look forward to sharing them with you!

Firstly, how about a new song to spice your appetite? In the spirit of the aforementioned nuptials, we thought about giving you all “something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue” and this new song fits the description perfectly. Allow me to explain:

Something Old: The song, “The Shadow”, was actually recorded a while ago. Dave, Jay, and I were in another band called Silverlane along with our good friends Adam Kozak and Mike Ashton. We recorded this song for an EP we called “Neanderthals to Concert Halls”. Adam is ripping on guitar and Mike is on bass. See if you can figure out where you’ve heard that girl’s voice before. Sound familiar?

Something New: Simply put, the song is also new because we’re releasing it again. Also, I’m sure there are plenty of you who haven’t heard it before… so it’ll be new to you.

Something Borrowed: As I said earlier, originally we recorded this song with our old band a few years ago. So it’s kind of like we’re borrowing it… but Dave wrote it, with most of TBL… so it’s all good.

Something Blue: The song “The Shadow” was written by Dave for our family dog Shadow. Dave noticed how Shadow looked incredibly sad every Sunday night when he’d go back to York University, leaving the house empty and quiet. It was like Shadow was losing a friend every week. The song was written for our dog to let him know that sometimes we have to leave, but that we’ll be coming back soon. Even though it was written for our dog, it also applies to many of our relationships with people. The song itself is kind of melancholy and therefore a bit blue. Shadow has died since almost giving the song more depth than before.

We will be releasing this song THIS FRIDAY (March 18, 2011) at midnight, and it will be available on our bandcamp site (http://thebreakinglakes.bandcamp.com). I know you like free stuff so here is what we will do for you if you have twitter:

TWEET FOR A DOWNLOAD CODE! Just promote TBL and “The Shadow” with a tweet and make sure to add @breakinglakes in the tweet so we can find you in our mentions. We’ll direct message you a download code on twitter and you can use that code to download “The Shadow” for free on bandcamp. If we missed your tweet just send us a message and we’ll get you the code. Remember this starts on March 18th! This Friday!

We have a bunch more stuff in the works too *cough *cough video *cough and a whole bunch else. New shows coming soon!

Back in January we, The Breaking Lakes, got an opportunity to play at the legendary Drake Hotel. Hosted by Lori Ann of Toronto’s 102.1 fm The Edge, it proved to be an amazing night of fun and festivities. We want to thanks all our friends who made it out but also a special thanks to all the new faces who decided we were more fun to watch than The Office and made the trip out. We love seeing new faces in the crowd and a packed house at the Drake is definitely a special place to see them.

As for the Twilight/Edward tshirt… my friend, Tom, gave it to me as a joke, and being one to never back down from a stupid challenge, I wore decided to wear it… and then I never heard the end of it for the rest of the night. It’s going to take a lot of coaxing to get me to sport that baby again. But you can try.